Retina screen may not actually beat out the eyeball

Apple's new 'Retina' screen on the iPhone doesn't quite beat out the limits of the human eye, according to one expert opinion.

Dr. Raymond Soneira of Displaymate Technologies fame has been telling reporters that in reality, the display doesn't exceed the threshold of the human eye at the distances Apple is claiming.

Soneira said that in order to surpass the threshold at which the human eye can discern between two pixels, the phone would have to be held a minimum of 18 inches from the eye, not the one foot Apple is claiming.

But then again it's not like Soneira is totally trashing the Retina screen. He still thinks it's the best on the market, rivaled only by the Motorola Droid. Just calling out Apple on what he sees as a fudged claim on the specs.

Probably not going to be a dealbreaker even if it's true, but if you're the sort of person that will get turned off by a possible small discrepancy in the clarity of the screen, well there you go.

We're still awaiting word on whether the iPhone is in fact "insanely great" or merely "eccentrically good."

10 Jun 2010

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The eye is constantly moving to prevent photoreceptor cells from bleaching. You lose visual acuity here, but don't notice because the brain fills it in

Posted by: GPS Handy 04 Jul 2010

The research theory of Gavin is a nice one. i think apple did the obvious. they had to increase the resolution because of the competition. they didn't want to face the challenges by supporting a lage number of resolutions, so they could use double the old resolution (like the ipad) which would end up with a resolution smaller than the competition, so they did choose the next level by making it four times as big. but as the phone needed to have a small physical size they ended up with that figure. no medical research only common sense. sorry to destroy any illusions about the apple decision process.

Posted by: Matthias Braun 25 Jun 2010

I got this interesting email in from Gavin Stern, a medical student from NYMC that I thought would be interesting to share with you: Overall, while technically the number of "pixels" for the new iPhone doesn't match what's on the retina itself, PRACTICALLY SPEAKING they probably tested what people could actually discriminate and those are the numbers they got. There are many reasons why the number of receptors on the retina does not equal actual resolution: -Convergence: cells in the retina converge and inhibit one another. You lose resolution there. -Center-surround properties: those retinal ganglion cells inhibit one another. This increases contrast but you lose info. -The layer of cells that overlies the photoreceptors causes chromatic aberration, mostly for blue-violet light. Subsequently, there are little to no blue cones in the center of the eye because of this. -The eye is constantly moving to prevent photoreceptor cells from bleaching. You lose visual acuity here, but don't notice because the brain fills it in. -There is more convergence of cells as visual information proceeds to the back of the brain, and then back up again for higher level processing So maybe the iPhone screen is better than the human retina ... thanks for that Gavin!]"

Posted by: Martin Hill 10 Jun 2010

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